PS4 & Xbox One See Successful Holiday Sales

The next generation of consoles launched in late 2013, after an eight-year generation before it, and many predicted the new platforms would not reach the sales heights of their predecessors. Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 had sold 84 million units as of E3 2014 while Sony announced just before the release of the PlayStation 4 that the PlayStation 3 had sold 80 million units. Even though both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are outpacing their predecessors, the sales anomaly for this generation comes in the way of Nintendo’s Wii U that, at a little above 10 million units sold, is far behind the original Wii that has surpassed 100 million units.

But the newest Xbox and PlayStation consoles have been smashing records and have continued on an upwards sales trend since they were. While Sony has been dominating Microsoft with consecutive NPD monthly victories, the Xbox One just experienced its best-selling month, in November of 2015. The domination from both consoles continues as both companies share more information from this past holiday season.

On the PlayStation side of things, Sony announced the PS4 sold a staggering 5.7 million units, raising its overall total to 35.9 million consoles. Sony clarified the sales were tracked from November 22nd to January 2nd in North America, Latin America, and Europe, whereas sales were tracked from November 23rd to January 3rd in Japan and Asian regions. The company also reported that 35 million copies of games were sold in that same period as well as an increase in PlayStation Plus subscribership, which rose 60 percent compared to last year. In a press release, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Andrew House said:

“We remain steadfast in our commitment to deliver innovative entertainment experiences, and look forward to bringing an unprecedented games portfolio from third party developers and publishers and SCE Worldwide Studios, including UNCHARTED 4: A Thief’s End, Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last Guardian, this coming year.“

For Xbox, Microsoft again reiterated the overall sales of Xbox One are far outpacing Xbox 360’s in a similar lifespan. Xbox Live as a whole – counting Xbox One and Xbox 360 — also had the most active day in its 13-year history on December 28. In a rather surprising announcement, Microsoft announced that all of the exclusive games in their holiday lineup — Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza Motorsport 6, and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition — surpassed 1 million units sold. After Rise of the Tomb Raider’s absence from the November NPD software charts, it had looked like the game essentially bombed and would have to wait for its PC and PS4 releases in 2016 to recoup lost sales.

Furthermore, Xbox One product manager and marketing lead Aaron Greenberg confirmed on Twitter that the sales of the sequel to the Tomb Raider reboot have actually far surpassed the 1 million unit mark mentioned in the blog post saying, “It is sell-through and well over 1M units, big December!” The NPD Group will be releasing its December numbers in early January, so it will be interesting to compare and contrast the games above and below Rise of the Tomb Raider — if it does indeed make the top 10 list — as the game had reportedly sold 200k units in November.

Microsoft touched on the success of Windows 10 with marketing executive Yusuf Mehdi announcing the OS is now active on more than 200 million devices worldwide. The company also saw a 40 percent rise in Windows 10 adoption after Black Friday, indicating massive sales for Windows 10 phones, laptops, and of course Xbox One consoles. Finally, both Sony and Microsoft teased what’s to come in 2016 with the likes of The Last Guardian and Horizon Zero Dawn for PlayStation 4, and Halo Wars 2 alongside Quantum Break for Xbox One. It will be interesting to see how long both consoles can keep up the momentum before they steady out — which doesn’t look to be anytime soon with record holiday after record holiday.

Screen Rant will keep you posted on more PS4 and Xbox One news as it is made available.